His Skin
by Dark K. Sly
Summary: Derek doesn't like killing. But he sure as hell enjoys what killing has brought him so far. /VIOLENCE/TORTURE/ALL THE ANGST


_His skin_

Once it's all over, when there's nothing anyone can do to change what's happened, Scott will remember a time when Stiles had looked haunted and said that Derek scared him.

At the time he didn't pay attention to the tone, the way his friend was saying that – they were _all_ scared of Derek, they all thought he was a murderer, someone who had killed a girl they later found to be his own sister.

Stiles had a reason to have been scared, though, a very particular reason, and every time Scott remembers that sentence, every time he closes his eyes and hears Stiles's voice, soft, and afraid, and scared in a way Scott _should have noticed_ was different than all those other times, saying _he scares me_, he feels a tug in his heart, something trying to break him to pieces.

He should have known.

He should have helped.

He should.

And yet he didn't.

Now it's all water under the bridge, a whole plethora of things none of them can quite change, and things are what they are.

He tries to hide it, though. Every time Derek is around, when he flashes his very red eyes at _his pack_, Scott bows his head and pretends he knows nothing.

He pretends it's normal, and that their lives are actually good.

He obeys his Alpha pretending it's out of respect and not because he's so afraid of what could happen in case he left.

Derek is, all in all, a fair Alpha. He's not bad to them, doesn't hurt them unless there's reason, and even protects them when needed.

Like with Peter and the fire.

It's all make-believe though.

The only thing Scott wishes for is that when he looks to _this time right now_ in a few months, or maybe years, he doesn't wish he had done it differently, like he does with Stiles and his admittance that Derek scared him.

Now Derek scares them all.

**X**

Stiles never quite saw what anyone could possibly see in him in any way, shape or form. Sometimes he's even afraid that Scott will get fed up with his crap and leave him, so when he turns out to be a werewolf after all, he sticks up for him. He researches and does his best by his best friend.

He doesn't really think anyone would have anything to worry about _him_, though. If that Derek guy should stalk someone it should be Scott and not _him_. He's nothing. He's not a werewolf or anything interesting enough to be stared at, followed or any other creepy behavior.

That's why it takes him so long to actually _believe_ in his own suspicion that someone is following him. Watching him.

He thinks it's just his mind playing tricks, because his best friend is now a werewolf, and when he isn't trying to kill people, people are trying to kill him, and it's all very stressful. It's actually quite normal for him to imagine the dark forms around his house, a flash of electric, bright blue eyes staring at him when he wakes up in the middle of the night.

A trick of the light, a prank of his own mind, overactive and way too vivid.

He kind of doesn't want to believe it's actually happening, so he ignores it, hoping it'll go away.

And it's not as if he actually has anything to go on, any indication that _Derek Hale_ is stalking him, because when they actually meet, the man acts as if he despises Stiles very being, and wants nothing to do with him.

He threatens and scares. He frowns and glares and all in all tries to keep him away.

Despite all of that, Derek scares him like nothing else. If he's completely honest with himself, Derek scares him more than the supposed Alpha. Way, way more, because it's a personal threat.

The Alpha wants him dead because he wants Scott as his pack.

Derek _watches him_, and Stiles _doesn't know what he wants_.

He tries to peg it all as a figment of his imagination, he really does.

But it becomes a bit hard for even him to believe that when the eyes watching him in the middle of the night turn red the same night Derek's do.

**X**

Derek doesn't like killing.

It's not something he enjoys, even when his feral mind is way more in control than anything else in his body – his wolf takes no pleasure in the perspective of tearing another living thing apart, of taking lives away. It's nothing thrilling or intoxicating as many fictional characters and real life monsters would lead one to believe: Derek actually thinks it's all a hassle.

He does kill, though, when he has to.

To defend his pack, the things he holds close to his heart – and no matter what most of his pack thinks, he does have a heart.

It's just very hard to get there.

Derek spent most of his life being a victim. Someone to whom things happen _to_, and when he becomes an Alpha, things _change_. He tries, by God, he tries, but it's so hard to keep pretending not to _want_ the things he wants, not to _take_ what he knows he _can take_. He tries working with that little ragtag pack, children playing at a grown-up game, tries to make them _see_ they can't win, but the McCall boy has external help, and the night Peter crawls out of the hell he should be in is the night Derek realizes he can't pretend to be what he is not anymore.

He needs to step up and become an Alpha, and that means getting all of his children under control.

(He pretends not to have a specific goal in mind, pretends _he_ isn't the one he's doing all of this for, pretends he doesn't spend most of nights on a window sill, at a desk chair, _watching_, just watching, all the things he can't have. Not yet. Not while they all think he's weak.)

In the end, Peter is the one who makes him see he _can have it_, and Peter is the one to make him _get there_.

Because Peter had died by his hand and turned him into an Alpha, and Peter had made all the wrong choices, and made Derek kill him again, gaining his pack's trust.

Derek doesn't like killing.

But he sure as hell enjoys what killing has brought him so far.

**X**

The fire happens because the Alpha Pack is a persistent little thing, and they see no other way.

Scott has agreed to work with Derek, and it's only fair that Jackson helps, after all the trouble he's caused these past few months, and Lydia understands all of that in a rational way, even if after all this time she has a hard time dealing with the actual _fire_.

Peter is dead because of it, though, and it's almost worth it.

Stiles is the one to come up with a plan, and that should have been warning enough that something would go wrong, but she believed in him.

Stiles was the only one to be there for her, the least she could do is repay him.

They go together, midafternoon, because late at night would have been ineffective and cliché, and they don't want that.

The Alpha pack is in a meeting and they don't fear humans. Their location is in a functional warehouse, because they are smarter than Derek, how hides in the woods, open to all sorts of attacks and no witnesses.

Stiles surrounds the place with mountain ash, and Lydia douses it all with gasoline. The humans saving the wolves, for once.

They light up their matches together, and together they set fire to the Alphas.

Of course there's trouble, and a little bit of fighting and snarling, and she may have gotten a black eye and a claw mark on her back because of it, and Stiles may have broken his arm and gotten a cut on his cheek that won't even scar, to be fair, but the Alphas _burn_.

When the screaming stops, they get in to check they are actually _dead_, and that's when Peter, their only werewolf companion for that task, has the magnificent idea of locking them in.

At the time, they thought he was only mad.

Not they know, he might have actually trying to protect them.

Or maybe just Stiles.

Sometimes death is a kinder fate than living.

**X**

She's the one to actually call Derek, even though she'll never forgive him.

Stiles and Lydia are her friends, though, and she would have never been able to forgive _herself_ if she hadn't tried to save them. She's been watching them the whole time, sickened and fascinated at the way they work together, killing the Alphas for their wolves.

Lydia for Jackson, Stiles for Scott.

She's not needed in there right now.

She sees Derek's dark red eyes come in the distance, the night falling over Beacon Hills as the flames _grow_ instead of dying as they should, and she hears Lydia screaming, and Stiles screaming, until she doesn't hear them anymore, and she almost despairs.

But Derek comes out with Stiles in his arms, and Jackson is carrying Lydia.

When she knows they're safe, she leaves.

She's decided to _leave._

She and her father pack up their things and don't even say goodbye to anyone.

If she ever sees a werewolf or a fire again in her lifetime, it'll be too soon.

**X**

Jackson is the one to get to Peter first.

He dies in less than ten seconds. Lydia isn't even awake to tell him goodbye.

Derek watches, unimpressed, as his uncle tries to make some sort of villainish speech. Something about knowing their weaknesses, strengthening their humans by suffering, vain words, poor excuses that he _knows_ won't get him anything. If the hunters hadn't been watching, if _Allison Argent_ hadn't chosen to redeem herself by _calling her enemy, the killer of her mother_, they'd be dead, and no one would be the wiser that Peter was their killer.

This time, when Derek kills him, he tears his uncle to pieces.

Buries his pieces in six different locations, and his head is actually burned down to ashes, and scattered in the woods.

Ashes to ashes, and this time he'll _remain there_.

As a Beta, Derek had always known one should respect their elders, honor them in death even if you were the one to take them down.

As an Alpha he does what he has to do to guarantee his pack will be safe, and there shall be no honor for Peter any longer.

When the humans wake up, after being treated by Mrs. McCall, Scott is a _willing_ part of his pack.

Lydia leaves, of course, no more ties to them, not blaming Derek for her love's death, but not quite able to live with it.

Erica, Boyd and Isaac bow their heads to him, submit as they well should, and now he's not embarrassed to _make them_.

He finally stops playing at being an Alpha, and _becomes_ one.

Derek thinks that some time in the near future he'll be able to have everything he wants.

His plans change, though, when Scott tells him Stiles is leaving the pack too, just like Lydia.

Well _that_ – _that_ he can't let happen.

**X**

It's not easy, but he can't take it anymore. There's no way he can take this any longer, because now _he knows_. He knows he's not crazy, he knows Derek keeps watching him and then pretending he hasn't done anything, and when they burn the Alpha Pack, and Peter almost burns them too, he knows he has taken enough, done enough.

He's repaid Scott for being to blame for his change by risking his life for him at least once a week this past year, and he's done.

He lets Scott know he'll be leaving the pack, but he'll never leave him.

For all that Derek seems to be always somehow around him, near him, _watching_ him, he actually believes he can leave. Maybe if he stays away from the pack, this whole thing will go away. Maybe if he's not around Derek anymore, the man will see that Stiles isn't a threat, isn't something he'll have to deal with – because that's what Stiles now believes Derek is doing: watching for a threat. The human who can betray them, and he won't.

He would never betray Scott like that.

A week goes by after he talks to Scott and nothing changes. They still hang out at school, they still talk a lot, and after the Argents magically disappear, Scott is around a lot more, moping and being generally depressed, but Stiles helps him, like the great friend he's always tried to be.

A month goes by and things seem to be settling down, finally. No hunters. No Kanimas. No Alphas, except the local one.

A semester goes by, and Christmas comes. A small feast with his dad and the McCalls, good memories Stiles has always treasured, the bittersweet feeling that cooking his mother's recipe brings, knowing she'll live on with them, but will never again _live_ with them.

He finally settles down.

That's when the call comes, the day after Christmas, when Scott is at his dad's, and his own dad is at the station.

He gets into his Jeep and goes, because he is nothing more than a friend of a werewolf. He's nothing much.

There's no reason why he'd be in danger, because he's not _enough_ to warrant _danger_.

He's never been so wrong before.

**X**

Derek knows he's always been a little bit obsessive.

When he was interested in something, that thing became _vital_ to him. All sorts of things caught his attention through his life, and once he _had_ them, he didn't get tired of them soon, he liked to _keep_ the things he was obsessed about.

Books. Movies. Art. TV shows, shirts, jackets. Always some_thing_.

The very first time some_one_ caught his attention like that, his whole family had been burned alive, because he had let _her_ be in control. He was so interested in _knowing_ her, in _having_ her, he hadn't even noticed he was _being had_ instead.

The second time it happens, he's decided not to make the same mistake.

Not to be deceived, but also, not to lose it.

He wants to have it forever, like he has that old copy of _Lolita_, his leather jacket, a collection of Sinatra's in vinyl, all the series by Joss Whedon, not matter how bad, or old or heartbreaking.

He wants to _have it_. To _keep it_.

And this time they're not running away.

He won't let him.

When he and Laura run away from the hunters, they barely have time to finish High School. He doesn't want to, she makes him, because she was her Alpha, and Alphas _can_ make their Betas _do_ things. They have that power, and so he had done it.

He finished his education, and then he got into photography. There were many things he wanted that he liked to just stare at, and so he took pictures. Of their home in New York. The charred remains of their house. The things he collected, the things he lost in the fire and found copies of.

Of him.

When he found out that the Kanima was actually being told who to kill by pictures, he had gotten pissed off, because that was something of _his_. That Matt boy had _no right_ to use it.

The only good thing Gerard had done his whole life was killing that boy.

As he watches all of the pictures being developed, he actually starts to understand his new obsession, this one that seems to be bigger and more burning than all the others put together – _he_ is never still. Never quite unmoving, always changing, constantly. Getting him on film is something fascinating, some pictures being blurred around his edges because he never stops.

The only time he stops is when he's asleep.

He has pictures of that too, because the boy is a heavy sleeper.

Derek doesn't really feel guilty for watching him, and then ignoring him.

The truth is Stiles has been _his_ ever since he _saw_ him for the very first time.

He has him.

And as soon as this day is over, he'll be Derek's forever.

The thing about his obsessing is that he's used to _having_ it. If he wants it, he gets to _keep_ it.

He refuses to let this, let _him_, be any different.

**X**

Contrary to what Stiles believes, Derek doesn't actually live in train cars or abandoned warehouses. He has an apartment.

A quite comfy condo a little ways away from downtown, but in a well-respected neighborhood. Stiles knows, through Scott, that he's been remodeling the old Hale house, that he bought it back, and is trying to restore it to its former glory, and he actually thinks is kind of good for him to do it, maybe Derek needs some closure, and the house being up again will help him.

Knowing the apartment the man lives is in a well lived area, with neighbors at shouting distance, allows Stiles to feel safe.

He goes because Derek told him on the phone he wanted to clear a few things up with him, because he left without saying goodbye and that after saving each other's lives so many times, the least they could do was parting ways somewhat respectfully.

And so he goes.

He gets there with the sun still up.

Derek has a soda for him. They sit, they talk, Derek smiles a lot – an open one, almost shy sometimes, almost charming if Stiles didn't know what the man is capable of. They agree that Stiles would be safer _with_ the pack, but Derek understands that he needs some space right now. Maybe when he's older, wiser, back from college (because _he is _going away for college) they'll talk this over again.

Derek offers him the bite, and he refuses, amicably.

They smile at each other when Stiles is getting up to leave – Stiles awkwardly, Derek knowingly – and for the boy, this is the last they'll ever see of the other if he can help it.

They don't talk about Derek watching him, or of Stiles letting him.

They shake hands, and Stiles leaves.

He's half way home when a dark, black SUV crashes into the side of his Jeep, making him get off the road, and hit his head on the steering wheel.

He doesn't even see who takes him away.

**X**

He never sees their faces. They never talk. It's always dark.

It hurts. It hurts so damn much, all of the damn time.

**X**

Insurance has made Derek's and Laura's lives easier, and learning to invest made them not have to worry about money.

For Derek, paying someone to take Stiles away is a good investment, just like Laura taught him to do.

It'll be worth it in the end.

**X**

The Sheriff is at his wits end by the end of the first week. Whoever took Stiles doesn't ask for a ransom, doesn't tell them what to do, doesn't demand anything.

He's somewhat convinced it's revenge for some old case that got away from prison, Lord knows there are a lot of those to go around.

By the end of the second week, Melissa is practically living in his house, because Scott is practically living in Stiles's bedroom.

They can't find a trail of the kidnappers. Humans _nor_ werewolves.

Derek demands they try and find Stiles, and they can't.

He tells the Sheriff everything about werewolves, explains that maybe, just maybe, some werewolf or a rival pack has heard of Stiles leaving them, of being out of their protection, and decided to use that against them.

The Alpha _vows_ to the Sheriff to bring his son back, and they _look_.

They look until their noses are metaphorically bleeding.

Boyd, one day, comes to the now finished Hale House, and asks to talk to Derek privately. They talk, and Boyd doesn't say a word to the rest of them when they come back.

It's weird.

They won't know the reason until they _actually_ get Stiles back.

**X**

He has no idea when it's day or night, because they come at odd intervals. He's tried counting, once, but then he hit his head and lost his count, and never got it back again.

He doesn't want to eat, at first, but they make him. It's either eat or being tasered, so he eats.

They hurt him.

It's weird, because it's never anything that'll leave a permanent mark, but he's in constant pain. He has food, but so little water, and they… they _touch_ him. Gloved hands, and eyes covered by dark, thick black glasses, and all the black clothes, and it's always so freaking _dark_, and he's so afraid.

They show him pictures.

His dad crying in his bedroom.

Scott with red-rimmed eyes.

Melissa cooking in his kitchen.

Derek, looking devastated in his apartment.

Erica in the woods.

Boyd sleeping.

Isaac leaving Scott's house.

Lydia alone at school.

They have all of this friends being watched, and he tries asking what they'll do, what the hell do they _want_, please just tell him, and he'll try to give it to them.

They never answer.

But they always hurt him.

**X**

Lydia offers to help, and Derek thanks her, but has to decline.

Stiles was a human with no protection of any pack, that's probably why he was taken. They can't risk it.

She rethinks her whole position as a non-member of the pack, and comes back.

They can't find their friend, but at least they are together.

**X**

He has no idea how long he's been there, but he knows that he can't quite imagine what light is anymore, and that can only mean it's been too long.

The last time his captor comes, and he has no idea how many they are, of even if there's more than one, he promises it'll be the last time, and Stiles is so scared, because he thinks he's going to die.

He – because at least _this_ he knows, it's a he – comes hours later, and Stiles is almost passed out from thirst, and hunger. It's been long since he's eaten anything, longer than ever before, and maybe they just don't want to bother feeding him since he'll be dead.

He grabs Stiles's head and makes him bare his neck, and Stiles thinks it's very ironic how he'll die submitting to someone who isn't a werewolf, and then he—

He does something that Stiles doesn't want to think about, just like Stiles won't think about all of the other things the man has done to him. His body, and his mouth, and his hands. He won't think about the fact that his clothes are in tatters, and his mouth is bruised, and how he has bruises in places there should never, ever be a bruise.

He finishes, throws Stiles back down on the floor, and leaves.

Maybe he'll be left here to die, he thinks, eyeing the small room – _cell, cage, confinement space_ – and tries not to close his eyes, because despite his last… however long he's been here, he doesn't want to die.

He just doesn't want to die.

**X**

Derek disappears one night, and the pack is on high alert, all of them waiting in the Hale house.

They'd know if their Alpha was in any danger, and they don't feel any of that, so they think he's probably out, looking for Stiles's scent again.

It's _almost_ that.

Not quite, but almost.

**X**

So he hires someone to play him one time – just one scene, on the last day.

Just this once.

It's not like he'll ever have to pay, anyway, seeing as the thug won't last the night. He gives him half the payment upfront, and doesn't worry about the rest – he won't be alive to ask for it, anyway.

**x**

Next time he wakes up, there's shouting. He tries to sit up, and can't. He's too weak, too hurt, and he tries to scream, but his throat is sore, and he _hurts._

_Just a little bit longer_, he thinks, when he hears a growl.

The door bursts open, and he sees _Derek_.

Derek, who is kicking the living shit out of the masked man, and Stiles swears he's so relieved, and that's why he's crying so much when the masked man becomes the masked _corpse_.

He could have sworn his captor was taller and slimmer, but Derek has him.

_Derek has him_.

He _has_ him.

Derek pulls Stiles into his arms as if he's a ragdoll, and gets up with him, and he looks so relieved by the very little Stiles can see with the weak light coming through the door.

He cries.

Relief flooding his chest, and making him feel a strange sort of light, because Derek _is here_, and Derek is _saving him_.

"I couldn't" he mumbles a bit, as Derek carries him to a car – a bigger car than his Camaro – and sets him carefully on the passenger seat, as if he's something precious and fragile, "I couldn't" he says again when Derek gets in, and the man turns to him, gathering his face in his big hands, coming closer until they are almost touching.

"I have you. You're safe with me. They'll never take you away. I have you."

His voice is rough and tired, and so relieved, and Stiles can only nod a bit, falling back on the seat, and closing his eyes.

Derek _has him_.

He's not afraid he'll die anymore, because _Derek has him_.

**X**

He's bruised, and weak, and his mind is in a state Derek doesn't want to think about, but everything will be fine soon enough.

Stiles is _with him_ now.

And Derek will never let him go.

**X**

When he wakes up again, he's still dirty, and, strangely enough, he's moving.

Derek has him in his arms again, and Stiles wants to ask something, but the Alpha shushes him, gently.

"Just a few more minutes, okay?"

Stiles doesn't say okay, but he watches everything around him, and they are in the middle of the woods.

Derek opens the door to a small cabin, and Stiles is coming in and out of a dream, or a nightmare, or hallucination, because every time he opens his eyes, something different is happening. Derek opens the door. Derek takes off his own shirt. Derek rips off the rest of Stiles's clothes. Derek puts him in a tub with warm water, and washes him carefully, and Stiles sighs, crying, he doesn't even know why.

"They touched you" Derek whispers, and Stiles nods, not wanting to voice it, because saying it out lout will make it somehow even more real than the bruises on his skin have done, "They died for it" Derek whispers again, and his eyes are red, and Stiles wants to hug Derek to him, and ask him please, _please_, never, ever again let him go.

Derek has to empty the tub and fill it up again about three times until Stiles is actually clean. The man helps him up, wraps him in a blanket and helps him to a bed, giving him a weak broth to drink from a mug, and Stiles is crying again.

Or maybe he never stopped.

"My dad…" he says, and Derek smiles at him, putting a rough hand on his face, a strange caress, that Stiles melts into.

It's the first soft touch he's had in he doesn't even know how long.

"He's fine. He couldn't save you, but I found you, and you'll see him again, okay?"

Stiles wants to nod, but he doesn't quite have the strength, so he blinks slowly, drinking his broth, and then the water Derek gets for him from the bedside table.

The Alpha gets up at some point, and Stiles closes his eyes, his breathing becoming somewhat troubled, because _Derek'snothere_, but then the Alpha comes back, sits beside him in bed, and pulls him close, almost to his lap.

"I'm here" he says, "I won't leave you."

Stiles falls asleep like that.

**X**

He's so afraid of being away from Derek he panics when Derek goes into the other room to get more water.

It warms him up inside, because he hasn't asked to go home, to see the others, to leave.

He only asked for Derek.

**X**

He wakes up to a soft touch on his cheek. His blanket fell away somewhat, and his shoulders are bare, and Derek is _watching him_.

Watching him like he used to.

"You do this a lot" he comments, and red eyes flash at him, but the touch on his face doesn't lose its gentleness.

"Because I care about you. I _treasure_ you" Derek says softly, almost a confession, as if all of that is a sin, and he's afraid of getting caught, "You shouldn't have left me, Stiles. They'd never have taken you away if you were mine."

"I'm sorry" he whispers, tears running down his face again, because he _didn't want_ to be taken away. He hadn't asked for it, he hadn't! "I never want to leave again" he says, and Derek seems pleased by that.

The Alpha gets closer and closer, soft and gentle even as his mouth touches Stiles's, his tongue almost asking for permission, teasing his lips, before taking away his control, kissing him dominantly and almost angry.

"If you were mine, nobody would ever hurt you again" Derek whispers, when he breaks off the kiss, and Stiles is trembling, because it's _Derek_, but he remembers those hands on him, and everything else that happened, and he _didn't want that_.

He doesn't even know if he _wants this_.

"Do you want them to take you away again?" Derek whispers against his neck, lips caressing his bruises there, and Stiles shakes his head.

He doesn't.

He really, really doesn't.

"Let me make you mine. No one will ever take you away from me. From your dad again. I swear, Stiles, no one will ever hurt you again."

And he nods.

Because he's exhausted. He hasn't slept in days, he hasn't eaten in what feels to him like a week, and he's weak, and tired, and so afraid, and Derek is _here_. Derek _saved_ him, Derek can protect him.

He gives himself over, because it's all he can do.

**X**

He gives Derek his consent, and who is he to deny Stiles anything?

Stiles's mouth is dry, and his skin is too warm for a human's, and his movements are slow, but Derek wants this so badly, and he's so close, he can't _wait_ anymore.

He kisses Stiles slowly, at first, but it's a thirst, a hunger, a desperate _need_ now that he _knows_ he can have the thing he has wanted most in his whole _life_ he can't quite make himself _wait_.

It's different this time. He doesn't have to force Stiles's mouth open, or hurt him because the boy has tried to bite him. He doesn't have to _make him_ submit, because he does so willingly.

He gives himself to Derek, and Derek takes it, because he wants this more than he wants to _breathe_.

He takes his time. Prepares Stiles carefully, even knowing there's no way it won't hurt. He takes him slowly, drawing it out, waiting for Stiles to get almost hard before actually sinking into him, jerking him off even if his… _his Stiles_ isn't quite ready for it.

He marks him.

Bites him on the neck _with the intent to mark a mate_, not to turn, but to show everyone that _Stiles is his_.

He comes inside his very own Stiles, hugs him close when he pulls out, kisses him until the tears stop coming, covers him with his own body, and them pulls the blanket over their naked bodies.

Promises him he'll never let go, and Stiles squeezes his hand as hard as his weakened state allows him.

He has him.

_He has him_.

**X**

They leave the cabin two days later. Stiles is hydrated, and almost back to eating normal food. He's covered in little marks, but he doesn't shiver in fear when he touches them, because while he doesn't _love_ Derek, _Derek has him_, and that means he's safe.

Derek said so.

As long as Derek is around, he'll never be in danger again.

**X**

The Sheriff tries to take his son home.

He's never been so grateful to anyone as he is to Derek Hale for bringing Stiles back, and he doesn't even want to try and investigate the dead man they left behind.

Derek killed him, and the Sheriff can't say he cares, because Stiles is even paler, and even more fragile, and his sarcasm seems to have left him, so his only defense is gone.

His only defense now is Derek, apparently.

He makes twelve minutes at their home before he asks for Derek, and starts trembling when the man isn't there yet. He has a full blown panic attack until Derek is by his side, holding him close, and the Sheriff knows it's not healthy, it's not even very safe, but he can't deny what Stiles asks, and he allows Stiles to stay with Derek until he's better at handling the world on his own.

**X**

If it depends on Derek, Stiles will never have to handle the world in his own, ever again.

Every night he promises him that _as long as Derek is there_ he'll be safe.

_As long as Derek is there_ he'll be fine.

_As long as Derek is there_.

And Derek will always be there to remind him of it.

**X**

The pack is allowed to see Stiles a week after he's back, because he'd be overwhelmed otherwise. He's talking again by then, more than a few words at a time, and with Derek's hand around his, he tells them about the masked man.

The pack listens, and looks at Boyd, and Derek's eyes flash red.

Now they understand.

Because if half of what Stiles has told them is true, and they know it is, Stiles should still smell like the man who did all those awful things to him before Derek saved him.

But the only smell on Stiles skin is Derek's.

**X**

Not long after the Sheriff finally admits that Stiles is officially living with Derek, Stiles goes into the basement, because his curiosity takes the better of him, and Derek has been encouraging him to do the things he used to do.

He sees the pictures.

Hundreds, maybe thousands of pictures.

All of him.

Throughout the two years they've known each other, Stiles with his shaved head, and the grown hair. At school, playing Lacrosse, and sleeping in his bedroom.

Hurt, and bleeding and broken and passed out in a darkened room.

He gets out of there with a tightness in his heart, and he can't breathe quite right.

Boyd is at the house, and they look at each other, and Boyd looks pained, and Stiles finally connects the dots, and realizes _they know_.

All of them know.

And they also know Derek will do much worse in case he tries to leave.

When Derek comes home that night, Stiles goes to him first. He doesn't wait until Derek is kissing him to kiss him back, he doesn't wait until Derek is undressed to take off his clothes, he does it first.

He offers himself up, and Derek _smiles_.

Derek _knows he knows, and smiles._

He smiles because they all know _Derek has him_. He's under his skin, all over him, inside his very soul.

And as long as Derek believes that, they are all safe.

And none of them wants to find out what would happen if he left.

Because, in the end, Derek has him.

It's as simple as that.

* * *

**REVIEW**


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